Video: Obama: 'Gadhafi will ultimately step down'

President Barack Obama predicted Tuesday that continued military and diplomatic pressure will force Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi to "ultimately step down."

In an interview with NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams a day after he
addressed the nation to explain his Libya policy
, Obama refused to rule out providing direct U.S. military assistance to the rebels fighting Gadhafi's government. But he said that was unlikely and that his comments shouldn't be interpreted as signaling wider U.S. intervention in the region.

"Gadhafi's been greatly weakened," Obama said. "He does not have control over most of Libya at this point, and so for us to continue to apply this pressure, I think, will allow us the space and the time to forge the kind of political solution that's necessary."

Asked whether the U.S. could take that step, Obama said: "I'm not ruling it out, but I'm not ruling it in. We're still making an assessment partly about what Gadhafi's forces are going to be doing."

Gadhafi 'back on his heels'
The president appeared to go further in discussing direct military assistance than did
diplomats from 40 countries who met Tuesday in London
to discuss Libya's future. British Foreign Secretary William Hague said the possibility of arming the rebels did not come up at the meeting, which was attended by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Like the allies at the London meeting, Obama made it clear in the interview that "our primary strategic goal is for Gadhafi to step down so the Libyan people have an opportunity to live a decent life."

"At this point, in addition to maintaining a no-fly zone protecting civilian populations, we also have political tools, diplomatic tools, sanctions freezing his assets — all of which continue to tighten the noose," he said. "And so our expectation is that as we continue to supply steady pressure, not only militarily but also through these other means, that Gadhafi will ultimately step down."

The president said he was reluctant to get involved in Libya because of lessons learned from the U.S. campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, each of which he said "weighs heavily on making these decisions." But he maintained that the uprising in Libya was "a unique circumstance" where the U.S. could "save a lot of lives."

"We had an international mandate to do it and an international coalition that was prepared to share the burdens," he said, and "what we've ... done is put Gadhafi back on his heels."

Obama acknowledged that the U.S. intervention had raised international concerns that the door had been opened for American forces to take action in other regional hot spots, like Syria, Bahrain, Sudan, Yemen and the Ivory Coast.

But Obama said "there are a whole range of tools available" to work out those problems.

He added: "It's my job as president to make those decisions based on all the consequences, understanding that we have some experience here in trying to impose our will in places like Iraq, and I think the American people understand a cost of that."

Col. Moammar Gadhafi is seen in Tripoli on Sept. 27, 1969, after leading a military coup that toppled King Idris. Gadhafi has maintained his rule over Libya for more than four decades since the coup. Gadhafi was killed in Sirte on Oct. 20 as revolutionary forces took the last bastion of his supporters.
(AFP - Getty Images)
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Gadhafi was purportedly a major financier of the Black September movement, a band of Palestinian militants. Its members perpetrated the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. One of the Black September guerrillas who broke into the Olympic Village is seen in this picture.
(Keystone via Getty Images)
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Flowers are laid at the memorial to Yvonne Fletcher, a British police constable who was shot dead by terrorists in April 1984 while on duty during a protest outside the Libyan embassy in London. Fletcher's death led to an 11-day police siege of the embassy and a breakdown of diplomatic relations between Libya and the United Kingdom.
(Fox Photos via Getty Images)
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Gadhafi and his second wife Safiya wave to the crowd upon their arrival in Dakar, Senegal, for a three-day official visit on Dec. 3, 1985. Gadhafi has eight biological children, six by Safiya.
(Joel Robine / AFP - Getty Images)
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U.S. Ambassador to West Germany Richard Burt, fourth from left, and West Berlin Mayor Eberhard Diepgen, fifth from left, inspect the damage following an April 5, 1986, bombing at a Berlin discotheque frequented by American serveicemen. Libya was blamed for the blast, which killed three and injured more than 200. Then-U.S. President Ronald Reagan retaliated by ordering airstrikes against the Libyan capital of Tripoli and city of Benghazi.
(Wolfgang Mrotzkowski / AFP - Getty Images)
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French policemen and army soldiers unload crates of arms and ammunition seized aboard the Panamian merchant ship Eksund on Nov. 3, 1987 at Brest military port in France. A huge supply of arms and explosives purportedly supplied by Libya and destined for the Irish Republican Army was found aboard the vessel.
(Andre Durand / AFP - Getty Images)
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This Dec. 22, 1988, photo shows the wreckage of the Pan Am airliner that exploded and crashed over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people - most of them Americans. Gadhafi has accepted Libya's responsibility for the bombing and paid compensation to the victims' families. Libya's ex-justice minister was recently quoted as telling a Swedish newspaper that Gadhafi personally ordered the bombing.
(Letkey / AFP - Getty Images)
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Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi is escorted by security officers in Tripoli on Feb. 18, 1992. Al-Megrahi was granted a compassionate release from a Scottish prison in August 2009 on the grounds that he was suffering from prostate cancer and would die soon.
(Manoocher Deghati / AFP - Getty Images)
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An Egyptian border policeman counts passports belonging to Palestinians waiting at the post in Salloum for transit to the Gaza Strip on Sept. 12, 1995. Families were stranded at the border with Libya after Gadhafi decided to expel 30.000 Palestinians, reportedly in order to call attention to the political situation in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.
(Amr Nabil / AFP - Getty Images)
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Libyan women bodyguards provide security for VIPs during a military parade in Green Square on Sept. 1, 2003, to mark the 34th anniversary of Gadhafi's acension to power.
(Mike Nelson / EPA)
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Family members of people killed in the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, read documents on Sept. 12, 2003, as the U.N. Security Council votes to lift sanctions against Libya for the 1988 bombing.
(Spencer Platt / Getty Images)
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British Prime Minister Tony Blair, left, flew to Libya in 2004 to hold talks with Gadhafi inside a Bedouin tent. Here, Blair and and Gadhafi stroll to a separate tent in Tripoli for lunch during a break in their talks. Blair's role was particularly vital in Gadhafi's international rehabilitation. He praised the leader for ending Libya's nuclear and chemical weapons program and stressed the need for new security alliances in the wake of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
(Stefan Rousseau / AP)
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U.S. President George W. Bush looks at material and equipment surrendered by Libya, during a tour of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee on July 12, 2004.
Bush officially lifted the U.S. trade embargo against Libya on Sept. 20, 2004.
(Tim Sloan / AFP - Getty Images)
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View of the remains of Gadhafi's bombed-out headquarters, now turned into a living memento, inside his compound in Tripoli on Oct. 15, 2004. The sculpture in the center represents a golden fist grabbing a U.S. jet fighter. U.S. jets bombed Tripoli, killing Gadhafi's adopted 4-year-old daughter, in April 1986 in retaliation for the Berlin discotheque bombing.
(John Macdougall / AFP/Getty Images)
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French President Nicolas Sarkozy is welcomed by Gadhafi in Tripoli on July 25, 2007. Sarkozy arrived for a meeting with the Libyan leader a day after the release of six foreign medics from a Libyan prison.
(Patrick Kovarik / AFP - Getty Images)
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Gadhafi's son Saif, center, attends a ceremony in the southern Libyan city of Ghiryan on Aug. 18, 2007, to mark the arrival of water from the Great Manmade River, a project to pipe water from desert wells to coastal communities.
(Mahmud Turkia / AFP - Getty Images)
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Gadhafi looks at a Russian-language edition of his book "The Green Book" during a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on April 17, 2008, in Tripoli. Putin was in Libya for a two-day visit to rebuild Russian-Libyan relations.
(Artyom Korotayev / Epsilon via Getty Images)
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Gadhafi and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi pose for a picture after signing an agreement in the eastern city of Benghazi on Libya's Mediterranean coast on Aug. 30, 2008. Berlusconi apologized to Libya for damage inflicted by Italy during the colonial era and signed a $5 billion investment deal by way of compensation.
(Mahmud Turkia / AFP - Getty Images)
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Gadhafi poses with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice prior to a meeting in Tripoli on Sept. 5, 2008. Rice arrived in Libya on the first such visit in more than half a century, marking a new chapter in Washington's reconciliation with the former enemy state.
(Mahmud Turkia / AFP - Getty Images)
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Gadhafi waves after delivering a speech during a meeting with 700 women from the business, political and cultural spheres on June 12, 2009, in Rome. The Libyan strongman drew cheers and jeers when he criticized Islam's treatment of women but then suggested it should be up to male relatives to decide if a woman can drive.
(Christophe Simon / AFP/Getty Images)
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Libyan Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, who was found guilty of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, top left, is accompanied by Seif al-Islam el-Gadhafi, son of the Libyan leader, upon his arrival at the airport in Tripoli on Aug. 20, 2009. Scotland freed the terminally ill Lockerbie bomber on compassionate grounds, allowing him to die at home in Libya despite American protests that he should be shown no mercy.
(Amr Nabil / AP)
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The president of the U.N. General Assembly, Ali Abdussalam Treki, top center, listens in apparent misery as Gadhafi speaks on Sept. 23, 2009, at U.N. headquarters in New York. It was Gadhafi's first appearance before the U.N., and he emptied out much of the chamber with an exhaustive 95-minute speech in which he criticized
the decision-making structure of the world body and called for investigations of all the wars and assassinations that have taken place since the U.N.'s founding.
(Stan Honda / AFP/Getty Images)
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Gadhafi greets Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez during the plenary session at the Africa-South America Summit on Margarita Island on Sept. 27, 2009. Chavez and Gadhafi urged African and South American leaders to strive for a new world order countering Western economic dominance.
(Carlos Garcia Rawlins / Reuters)
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Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, Gadhafi and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak during a group picture of Arab and African leaders ahead of the opening of the second Arab-African summit in the coastal town of Sirte, Libya, on Oct. 10, 2010. Ben Ali and Mubarak were driven out of power by popular revolts in 2011.
(Sabri Elmehedwi / EPA)
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Gadhafi is followed by members of the press in Tripoli before making a speech hoping to defuse tensions on March 2. Gadhafi blamed al-Qaida for creating turmoil and told applauding supporters there was a conspiracy to control Libya and its oil.
(Ahmed Jadallah / Reuters)
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Libyan rebels step on a picture of Gadhafi at a checkpoint in Tripoli's Qarqarsh district on Aug. 22. Libyan government tanks and snipers put up a scattered, last-ditch effort in Tripoli on Monday after rebels swept into the heart of the capital, cheered on by crowds hailing the end of Gadhafi's 42 years in power.
(Bob Strong / Reuters)
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A man in Tripoli holds a photo said to be of Moammar Gadhafi after the announcement of the former leader's death, Oct. 20, 2011. Gadhafi was killed when revolutionary forces overwhelmed his hometown, Sirte, the last major bastion of resistance two months after the regime fell.
(Abdel Magid Al-fergany / AP)
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